Victor Boyhan (Independent)

Before I start, I wish to acknowledge and pay special tribute to three people who were very close to Billy. One is Councillor Anna Grainger, a very close friend of Billy's. It is great to see her in the Chamber. The two other people could not come here today: the former RTÉ political correspondent, Seán Duignan, and his wife, Maria. I know they are tuned in and were very special friends to Billy and Anne.

Coming up today I asked what could be said about Billy Lawless. I am a great believer in the phrase that to understand the man, you must understand the boy. As we all know, Billy Lawless was born in 1950. John F. Kennedy came to Leinster House in 1963. Think what the 12- or 13-year-old boy, Billy Lawless, the Jesuit-educated boy from Galway, thought about. The one thing Billy Lawless spoke about every day was John F. Kennedy. He had a love for Kennedy, an affinity for, understanding of and empathy for what Kennedy stood for in the broader sense of what Kennedy was about in terms of immigrants, migration, forced migration, and saying goodbye to your family and loved ones never to return. Many went to the United States and further. There was no land of honey or dreams there. Many Irish people faced resentment and rejection. Many of them were even turned back. Now we roll on and think what is happening again all over the world. Are we going to learn from that? My colleague Michael McDowell said it right. Billy Lawless was a gentleman. He was a humanitarian. He was an entrepreneur. He was neither left nor right, as so many people want to pigeonhole us. He was a man who brought humanity to everything he did and everything he wanted to do. We welcomed him with open arms into our very collective elected group, the Seanad Independent Group.

Today, I think of Kennedy again. This morning, I asked to go and see the Kennedy flag, the flag that John F. Kennedy brought to this House back in 1963. The flag was the battle flag of the 69th New York Volunteers - I will finish in a few moments on New York - an Irish brigade in the American Civil War. He gifted that flag to the Irish people in recognition of the contributions of Irish immigrants in the United States. That is a very special flag. That and our Proclamation are the two endearing and very special symbols in these Houses. A room has been opened that was specially designed for it. I hope that those in the Gallery may be able to visit it today.

I think about the young impressionable 13-year-old boy and Kennedy's visit to Ireland in 1963. Billy modelled his life on what Kennedy and others stood for. He addressed the issues of the undocumented Irish, the forgotten Irish, the ones who were rejected, the ones who had no driving licences and no identification, were working in the black market and were taken advantage of, and later on, the ones who wanted to return to their homeland and could not come because they had no documentation and Ireland was a changed place anyway.

Billy was a liberal and a humanitarian. He advocated for his people. He was deeply connected with his roots. He was deeply connected to and had a great affinity for the Jesuits, who had educated him. He was fiercely proud of that. He loved his family dearly, as Senator McDowell said earlier. We all know more about his family than they know about themselves because that was Bill's honesty. You get to know people when they are unique, empathetic and true to themselves. That was Billy in every sense of the word.

I then think of what has happened this week with the election of Mayor Mamdani in New York. Remember I said that the flag that Kennedy brought us was from New York. I quote one line from Mamdani's great speech in which he said, "New York will remain a city of immigrants: a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant." That is a very moving thing. That is typical and it relates back to Billy and his commitment to immigrants, difference and the rich tapestry of diversity.

I salute our guests in the Gallery who were always there to support Billy. He was a proud man and he was proud of them. We were proud of him. He left an indelible mark on us. It has not finished yet. We owe it to his memory to continue to advocate for the undocumented Irish, to empower the Irish people, to be proud of our tradition of immigration but also welcoming difference from different communities and different people. That is our call. That is Billy Lawless's call, that we are open, we are human, we are loving and we are caring. Our doors are big enough to receive all and make them welcome: welcome in this House and welcome in this country. Billy Lawless left those seeds of hope, inspired us with that vision, and I believe we will continue to aspire to that in his name.